Interest rates remain stable for the third straight week. The Mortgage Backed Security Market closed the week trading up (+ 16 bps), but Monday morning is trading down (-21 bps).

Interest rates continue the trend of staying relatively the same or slightly moving up. The FEDs MBS purchasing program is keeping rates from going up to much, but the market has not significantly improved in over a month.

On Friday, 85 billion in spending cuts are scheduled to take place unless a deal is made in Congress. The global markets have known about this for some time and it hasn’t affected the markets thus far. This is something to watch closely though as both parties agree that the current spending cuts will have a negative effect on the economy.

Interest rates are unlikely to gain significant improvement without a dramatic loss in the stock market. Maybe the automatic spending cuts will be the event that makes that happen. I’ll be watching closely, but I still believe a last minute deal will take place kicking the can further down the road.